Marry Me
by Shadow131
Summary: What would it mean to him, if she forgot while he never could? J/S A romance one-shot.


A.N.: I've got to stop listening to freaking Train. Up yours, Train, and your beautiful melodies and heartfelt lyrics. So it's sort of a songfic.

I swear I am working on "Say When," it just got sidelined for shorter projects, like this one, or the two forty page monstrosities currently in beta. When they've been picked apart, they'll go up, not to worry.

But now this is happening. Ohhhh well.

What I say about New York and rain is absolutely true: I had a room on the seventh floor and it flooded. I was born in Oregon and spent the first two years of college in Tacoma, and never have I experienced worse rain than in New York.

As ever, for the world's most awesome beta, Mztlynne.

**Marry Me**

She was wearing the powder blue dress, and the apron with the frills on the bottom hem, a pocket carrying her order pad and a pen. It was his favorite of the dresses she wore to work – or maybe the black one, that stopped above the knee and showed pretty glimpses of her slender legs. Sarah had nicer dresses, two of them. The ubiquitous "little black dress" he foamed over, because she wore that going out to bars and he hated that; and the sapphire blue that clung to every lovely curve without being too scandalous, the one she wore to most of her auditions. She looked beautiful when she put up her hair with glittering pins, dusted makeup against her soft eyelids, pierced cubic zirconia through her ears. Yet somehow, in spite of himself, he found he liked her best like this: simple dresses for work, genuine, earnest. It was all the ways she'd never changed, in seven years.

She laughed, and his vision tunneled. She was at the second table from the door, chatting with a man in his seventies, one of the regulars. Jareth had eyed the man carefully, watched the way he looked at Sarah, but eventually became content that he was no threat. His gaze on her was with the affection a man has for a beautiful girl who reminds him of his youth. She didn't need to write down his order, she knew it by heart: corned beef hash, two eggs over medium, hold the toast. With wishes of care, she strode away to the cafe counter. Jareth buried his nose in his coffee cup.

It worked – she walked right by and did not look once in his direction. She never did. She hardly ever noticed he was there at all. The old man did. Jareth once bristled, because the old codger winked at him, as if they were sharing a secret.

Whatever that old git was assuming, he was _dead _wrong.

"_Forever can never be long enough for me_." He heard her sigh from across the cafe, watched her lean down beneath the counter to turn up the radio; she loved this saccharine acoustic song, such a sentimental girl. He was getting downright sick of hearing it. "_To feel like I've had long enough with you_."

He watched the way her green eyes glittered, a gaze that went far away, far beyond the reaches of the dirty city streets and crowded subway cars. Ever the dreamer, Sarah, with new dreams at twenty two. Was there anything more lovely in all the world than a mortal girl at twenty two? Jareth unabashedly and unconsciously stared at her from across the cafe. The old man was smiling at him again.

He loved her for her dreams.

"_Marry me, today and every day..._"

He couldn't remember the first time he came to see her, it was sometime after she'd started working in the diner, trying to pay the bills while pursuing her dreams for the stage. He simply knew that one day, he could no longer stay away. He'd walked in dressed in a black overcoat, black jeans, shining black shoes. She was standing by the cash register – she smiled at him.

His heart stopped dead in his chest.

"Good morning," she said with that perfect smile. "Just one today?"

Just one.

The rather sub-par cuisine had soured in his stomach as he realized she did not recognize him. Had he disguised himself too well? Or had she somehow forgotten him, and all the stolen moments of furtive glances and grasping hands? What would it mean to him, if she forgot while he never could? At first he had been angry, and stormed straight back to his sanctum and kicked three goblins just to even out his mood. He swore never to see her again, to curse her for a fool, and forget this whole damn stupid affair.

He came back the next week, this time dressed in a smart suit and tie.

This was the disguise he wore most often, a well-tailored thing that made her eyes linger on his form just a little longer.

"How was everything?" She was at his table now, her small hands clasped in front of her, resting on top of her stained apron. She was still smiling, Jareth couldn't help but let his gaze wander over every perfect feature of her face, over the way her name tag always made the collar of her dress bunch up, over the hangnail that was snagging the index finger of her right hand. He had tried to stop being happy when she smiled at him, because she smiled at _everyone_. Of course she did, she wanted tips, didn't she? A beautiful young girl like her? She knew just how to get what she wanted, she _always _had. "Was I right?"

"What?" He blinked at her, his tone cold and aloof.

Sarah kept right on smiling. "About the omelet special, it was good, wasn't it?"

"...it was alright."

"Is there anything else I can get you?"

"More coffee." She nodded as she collected the half empty plate, the remains of eggs and cheese and grease more picked over than actually consumed.

"_If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe, say you will_."

The Goblin King did not take defeat gracefully or well. It hadn't taken him many trips to the Above for him to determine what it was he wanted – not revenge, at least, not quite. No. It was _her_. She'd say yes, she had to.

_It would be a royal wedding, every crown and head of state in the Underground would be clamoring to be at the event of the century. She'd wear the dress she'd worn in her crystal dream, but updated: it had always had a kind of chaste beauty to it, but now she was a woman, not a girl. He would have it hug her form a little now, make everyone understand just how wonderful his bride would be. He would have pearls woven into the gorgeous, dark strands of her hair, with emeralds around her neck the color of her eyes, each and every one perfectly flawless. She'd wear a perfume of lavender – no, lilac, and slip her little hand in his with such an open look of devotion and of adoration. The trumpets would herald his union from the highest point of the tallest tower, each guest would bow to the Goblin King and his beautiful Queen. After that, the greatest feast and the grandest ball any fey had ever hosted. She would dance in his arms all night, and she would _not _run away, and damn it, he'd have the chairs _bolted _to the floor-_

"Enjoy your coffee." She was smiling at him again, and he almost started at the sudden interruption to his reverie. The old man laughed from his seat two booths away, and Jareth fixed him with a cold glare.

It was Tuesday when he came back again, in a charcoal suit with a burgundy tie, the very epitome of confidence and class. It was the lunchtime crowd, and he could see Sarah standing behind the counter, looking somewhat frazzled – but she looked up at the sound of the bell hanging above the door and smiled at him, just the way she always did.

"Hi!" It was one of her coworkers who bounced up to him, a blonde ponytail swinging back and forth. The simpering, _disgusting _Amy. "Just yourself? I have space over by the-"

"That seat, right there." He pointed out a corner table for two, nearest to the bar. He knew by now exactly which tables were Sarah's, and he would _not _sit in another section.

"Um..." The blonde scrunched her plucked eyebrows together, biting a bubblegum lip. "It's going to be at least fifteen minutes before that one clears up..."

"I will wait," Jareth replied, taking his newspaper from under his arm and sitting defiantly down on the bench by the door, glaring at anyone who bumped his knee when they came through and took the open seats in other sections of the cafe. It was worth being patient, too, because things were emptier when he finally was seated. Quieter, which suited his temper, and Sarah had time to linger just a moment.

"Hey." She was in jeans and her blue knit sweater, the one with the hole by her hip. He wondered if she hadn't noticed yet, or if she couldn't afford to replace it. What if he left her a big tip? No, he was _not _going to sink to that level. "Crazy day, huh?"

"I suppose."

"Our soup of the day is the tomato basil bisque, and our special is the reuben." He ordered the soup – Jareth almost never ate sandwiches. He mistrusted any food that did not require utensils to consume – and she smiled, notepad in hand. "Anything to drink?"

"Tea."

"Is there a kind you'd prefer?"

"Your favorite." Now _why _had he said that?

But Sarah was smiling at him – really smiling _for _him, for one beautiful moment. Not the smile of a polite server, but the genuine smile of human contact, of happiness. "Sure thing. Just a moment."

"_Together can never be close enough to me, to feel like I am close enough to you_." She had put in the order, and he watched as she took a rag soaked in bleach water and began scrubbing down recently vacated tables. Jareth used to believe that what was driving this obsession was his primal instincts as a man; that if he sealed the doors and shuttered the blinds and lifted her onto one of these tables or the counter top and made her scream with pleasure, that he'd be sated and free at last from her wicked pull. He had imagined the scenario a million times in his head, his tongue lingering on a spot on his lip where crumbs had long since been licked away. But it was never enough. It wasn't enough to be in her body, seductive as it was. He needed within her heart as well, in that space of sacred trust. He hated and adored being in love with her. "_You wear white and I'll wear out the words I love you, and you're beautiful_."

_He knew how he would woo her. He remembered all her little fantasies; how her secret longings had made him appear before her as a tight-trousered glam rock Adonis and how some secret part of her had _ached _for him. The most adult woman could still be the most tender little girl, in his experience. One of these days, he'd roll up in a limousine as the latest pop idol, flashing his most debonair smile and cooing his most seductive sweet nothings. She'd melt into a puddle at his feet, he'd make her a star by proximity with her face next to his on every magazine cover. The paparazzi would commit _murder _to get a prime spot at the ceremony, in a villa in the Dordogne. Sarah would wear Givenchy, drip Chanel, and sparkle Cartier. When all that was over, when he'd sealed them away from prying eyes, they would make love to one another in the twilight and swear to never stop, to continue this passion for all eter-_

"Pat!" Sarah was squealing, bouncing on her toes as one of her theater friends strolled in, a tartan scarf wrapped around his skinny neck as he flashed a carefree smile at her. "Pat, you come to propose yet?" She had danced over to him, wrapped both arms and one leg around him and giggled like a school girl while he lifted her off the floor in a hug.

"_If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe, say you will_." Jareth left less than fifteen percent for the tip and stormed out of the tiny establishment with a scowl on his face.

New York is not given enough credit for its rain. Like all things in the sleepless city, rain does not come in half measures, but in torrents, a downfall to wash away the city's sin. Had Jareth been flying, his feathers would have been too soaked to take off. Luckily, he took shelter under his black umbrella while he stared at the cafe door the next Thursday, music piping out of speakers to empty patio tables. "_Promise me you'll always be happy by my side_."

He'd been over-thinking this, he'd realized, stepping into the shelter of the doorway and carefully shaking the water off his umbrella. He thought Sarah still wanted grand and amazing things the way she wanted her acting to become super-stardom, but hadn't she also showed him time and time again what she was willing to give up for what _really _mattered? She was not the selfish daughter of her mother, but a woman who put her family first.

_In the backyard, then, or maybe her grandparents' church. She'd be beautiful as a traditional bride, he'd thrill to lift the veil and kiss her lips for the first moment of the rest of their lives. Her father would walk her down the aisle, Toby could be the ring bearer – or maybe he was too old for that now. He could hand out programs while her step-mother cried. They would swear love, honor and obedience while all those present bore witness. At the reception, they would sip champagne and feed each other the first bites from a five-tiered cake, and the first dance would be to something classic and timeless. She would look into his eyes and say it was the moment she'd been dreaming of since she was a little girl_.

"Hi." Sarah's smile behind the counter was tired now, she almost hadn't seen him come in, and he was silent in his thoughts. There was one old man bent over a bowl of soup to warm himself from the chill of the rain, but otherwise, she was quite alone there. For a moment, he felt a pang to switch their positions, let her rest while he waited on her – but that could not be, not now. Maybe not ever. Without waiting to be prompted, Jareth took a seat in front of her at the counter, and she still smiled that weary smile while she pulled out a grease splattered menu. "What can I get for you?"

"The blue plate special," he murmured without taking his eyes from off her. Her eyes were puffy, like she had not been getting adequate sleep. "And coffee. Please."

She nodded and still smiled that thin, worn smile. "Coming right up." She rung it in, and Jareth was arrested with a terrified notion: what if she never said yes? No, wait, that wasn't the worst thought. The worst thought was what if he failed to make her happy? She was everything he ever wanted: a strength, purity and intensity of dreams to feed him for a thousand lifetimes; a truth of conviction he could truly admire; a passion for life he _so desperately _wished to be a part of. But what could he offer Sarah? His crown, his eternity, his power, his body – but what if she wanted none of that? What if what she desired was beyond his ability to give? He watched her when she did not notice and realized he could not bear it if being with her brought her unhappiness instead of joy.

"_I promise to sing to you when all the music dies_."

The Goblin King's fist tightened around a straw plucked from the jar on the counter. _No_. He couldn't fail, not in this. No man would ever love Sarah the way he did – no one would ever have the chance to see her radiance in adversity the way he had. No one would truly understand her passion and her compassion, her capacity for growth and for change, and her ability to...love, not as he did. He would not let cowardice rule him, and he would not abandon this girl, not if the whole world turned against her. And if he could not give her a crown and a throne in the Underground, he would give her his arms and his voice whispering comforts and singing her lullabies, from now until the stars burned out of the skies. Surely that was enough? It _had _to be enough. He did not know what else he could possibly give her.

Another thought gripped him, and he dropped the twisted straw as if it had burned him. _Too much waiting. It would be a Justice of the Peace. She could wear a plain white dress and he would wear a dark suit, and tuck store-bought flowers behind her ears. Maybe it didn't have to be some big event, maybe the point was to get it out of the way, legalized as quickly as possible, and begin the important parts_. How late were these mortal bureaucracies opened? Where did one go about obtaining a marriage license?

Sarah brought out the blue plate special, which she thought might be lamb, but it could have as easily been mutton – but he was gone. She almost dropped the plate, because for some reason, she had never felt a greater disappointment in her life than in that one moment. It was a stabbing sense of loss, but at least it was brief, and she gripped her chest with one free hand. Sarah scanned the cafe carefully, even knocked at the restroom door, but no, the place was empty; her only other customer had gone as well, his bowl of soup sitting empty and alone. Well, Murray in the kitchen would be happy to close up early, and this would give her time to go home and shower before heading to the theater. Another opening night. Maybe this would be the one that solved everything, that filled in the emptiness within her heart. She used to believe it, but all of a sudden she didn't anymore. Well. No sense letting perfectly adequate mutton go to waste. It would be the best dinner she'd have tonight anyway, and she picked at it morosely before switching out the neon "OPEN" sign.

She had tried to tell herself she was tired from all the frantic dress rehearsals and last minute changes she'd been working through in the show, but she knew better; it was last night's dream. _The details were hazy, but the important points were all there: they stood hand in hand beneath the grandest tree she had ever seen in her life, like it was the beginning of the world. His head was bent so that his forehead touched hers, his corn silk locks of hair mingling with her darker tresses and creating something new, something wonderful. Sarah could look into his eyes for all of the rest of time, and she knew she would always find new surprises there, new things to love. And what was more, he was looking at her the exact same way. There were no witnesses but the air around them, and the beatings of their hearts, as they swore love forever. No other Right Words were necessary for this magic. It was the oldest kind there was_. She had woken up with tears of despair and happiness on her cheeks, the first time she had thought of the Goblin King in so long – and she wondered if he was thinking of her.

But why would he be, she chided herself as she pushed around a glob of mashed potatoes on the chipped blue plate. How stupid could she be? Supposing any of her dreams had been real, and she was never very sure on that, why would _he _think of _her_? She had just been fifteen then, and he had been so beautiful, so perfect even in his cruelty. What possible allure did she have, then or now? And what had she ever given him but rejection, that he might think about her now? It was better to focus on the future, she knew, and not the past. Think about paying her electric bill next month, or talking to her agent about her next audition. Think about the apartment she'd buy when she was a star, or how she would take Toby to Disneyland and buy him all the ice cream he wanted until they were both utterly sick. Thinking about these dreams used to make her happy, but they all seemed so empty now; now, when she had the taste of truth from a _real _dream still on the edges of her lips, if she closed her eyes and believed hard enough-

Sarah crossed her fingers and opened her eyes – but the cafe was as empty as before. Her shoulders dropped and she wanted to cry. But she knew already that wishes did not come true.

Murray had shut off the ovens and gone home, and Sarah had stacked all the chairs and swept and mopped. Damn, it was still raining, but that was fall in New York City. Sarah bunched her thin jacket over her head and thought about splurging on a taxi, just this once. With a deep breath, she shouldered her bag and opened the cafe door, locking it behind her and already getting drenched by the downpour. She was about to curse her luck and all of Manhattan – when the umbrella opened up above her head. She blinked, breath caught in her throat, and turned slowly.

It was him. Oh God, it was him. Sarah had to clutch her hands together to keep them from shaking. He was smiling at her – but it couldn't be him, because his smile had always had a tinge of smug cruelty to it, superiority. This...this was just...happiness.

"Hello," he said it quietly, and she knew it _had _to be him, because no one else in the world possessed a voice like that, no one else could make her shiver just from one word.

Sarah's back was pressed against the locked door, and she brought her hands to her throat to give herself conviction. "I-I knew," she gasped, really trembling now. "I knew, someday, it would have to be you. That you'd come back. I – you – _Jareth_."

His thin eyebrows almost disappeared beneath the wave of his hair; not all wild like before, swept back in an arc against his head, like he was trying to blend in – for her. "You...remembered?"

Sarah pressed her hands against the door in an effort to stop her shaking. "I never forgot."

The Goblin King almost dropped the umbrella, his hand reached out like a vice and seized Sarah fiercely by the shoulder, and she really did not care. "How long have you known I was here? Did you see me come to you before?"

Sarah shook her head, the rain water starting to drip down them both in the places the umbrella did not reach. "I don't know. But...I _saw_, I..." His hand fluttered at her shoulder, and her red mouth curved in the most gentle and sweet smile he had ever been graced with. "You saw it, too? The dream?"

Jareth's strange eyes closed, she saw his throat move as he swallowed. "It was _my _dream."

In the silence that stretched out between them, Sarah stepped closer to him, so that he had to shift his arm. It slipped around her neck now, holding her a little nearer. "Not just your dream."

"_Marry me...today and every day_."

Sarah's hands shot up to cover her mouth. "Oh, hell! I left the radio on!"

She actually thought she heard him laughing, a low chuckle at the base of his throat, and it was something she had never heard before. Somehow, it thrilled her to the core, and he gently brought his arm to rest so that it wrapped both her shoulders, and began to walk her away. "Let it play."

Sarah hesitated, stumbled a bit...and then smiled, and matched his pace. She didn't know where they were going, it was possible he didn't either – and right then, she really didn't care.

"_If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe, say you will..._"


End file.
